Patten tells on Murdoch

In February 1998,
Rupert Murdoch
instructed his British book publisher, HarperCollins, not to publish a book by
Chris (now Lord ) Patten
.

That fascinating bit of history, which Mr Murdoch tried to shrug off during New Corp’s takeover of Dow Jones in 2007, was retold by Lord Patten to the Leveson inquiry.

He explained that his book about his experiences as Britain’s last governor of Hong Kong contained material critical of the Chinese authorities at a time Mr Murdoch was hoping to expand in China.

He told the inquiry: “Plainly, Mr Murdoch took the view that publishing a book critical of the Chinese leadership would not improve his chances, so he instructed HarperCollins to drop the book on the grounds that it was no good."

It was, said Lord Patten, a commercial decision. And it transpired that it was a commercial success for both men. Lord Patten got his £50,000 advance from HarperCollins and when the book was published in America by another company, it was promoted with a sticker on the front saying: “The book that Rupert Murdoch refused to publish."

So, said Lord Patten, “it was worth tens of thousands on the sales of the book".

And Mr Murdoch’s success? A journalist friend, Oscar Blend, points out that although the incident didn’t make the least difference to his attempts to extend his empire into China, he did benefit commercially, if tangentially. In April 1998, two months after the dumping of Lord Patten’s book had become a story around the world, the Chinese communist party chief, Jiang Zemin, surprised delegates to the annual People’s Congress by extolling the virtues of the movie Titanic.

And one of the studios that helped stump up the enormous budget for that film was, of course, Mr Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox.